𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚜 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜

Midas is a Bitch

I sighed in relief once we were out of Chicago, with no sign of the sun dragons following us.

"Good job, Festus." Leo said, he patted the dragon's metal hide. "You did awesome."

The dragon shuddered. Gears popped and clicked in his neck, making Leo frown, he rested his head on my shoulder.

"I'll give you a tune-up next time we land," Leo promised. "You've earned some motor oil and Tabasco sauce."

Festus whirled his teeth, but even that sounded weak. He flew at a steady pace, his great wings angling to catch the wind, but he was carrying a heavy load. Two cages in his claws plus four people on his back—the more I thought about it, the more worried I got, I could tell Leo was worried too. Even metal dragons had limits.

"Leo." Piper patted his shoulder. "You feeling okay?"

"Yeah ... not bad for a brainwashed zombie." He responded. "Thanks for saving us back there, beauty queen. If you hadn't talked me out of that spell—"

"Don't worry about it," Piper said.

I could tell Leo was still worrying about it, mainly because he wrapped his arms around me and sulked.

"You wanna talk about anything?" I whispered to Leo.

He shook his head. "No, not right now, I just wanna sit here."

"Okay." was all I said.

We sat in silence for a while.

"We're gonna have to put down soon," Leo said. "Couple more hours, maybe, to make sure Medea's not following us. I don't think Festus can fly much longer than that."

"Yeah," Piper agreed. "Coach Hedge probably wants to get out of his canary cage, too. Question is—where are we going?"

"The Bay Area," Leo guessed. "Didn't Medea say something about Oakland?"

"Yeah, I think so," I said. Piper didn't say anything.

"Piper's dad," Jason put in. "Something's happened to your dad, right? He got lured into some kind of trap."

Piper let out a shaky breath. "Look, Medea said you would both die in the Bay Area. And besides ... even if we went there, the Bay Area is huge! First we need to find Aeolus and drop off the storm spirits. Boreas said Aeolus was the only one who could tell us exactly where to go."

Leo grunted. "So how do we find Aeolus?"

Jason leaned forward. "You mean you don't see it?" He pointed ahead of them, but Leo didn't see anything except clouds and the lights of a few towns glowing in the dusk.

"What?" Leo asked. "That ... whatever it is," Jason said. "In the air."

"Umm, I don't see anything, Jase," I said.

Piper and Leo looked just as confused.

"Right," Leo said. "Could you be more specific on the 'whatever-it-is' part?"

"Like a vapor trail," Jason said. "Except it's glowing. Really faint, but it's definitely there. We've been following it since Chicago, so I figured you saw it."

Leo shook his head. "Maybe Festus can sense it. You think Aeolus made it?"

"Well, it's a magic trail in the wind," Jason said. "Aeolus is the wind god. I think he knows we've got prisoners for him. He's telling us where to fly."

"Or it's another trap," Piper said. Her tone worried me. She didn't just sound nervous. She sounded broken with despair, like we'd already sealed our fate, and like it was her fault.